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113 Maddox, Rodgers, and Schwartz Brooks, Doswell, to give the student an idea of what he or she knew, to indicate to the instructors areas that needed emphasis (in fact, it was initial pretests that convinced instructors to change the primary focus of the course). and 1) 2) to measure growth in the expertise of the NWS staff. The results of pretest performance from many years of classes were summarized by Doswell and Maddox (1993). Regrettably, they found little change in the answers given through the years, indicating that the base knowlege level of NWS forecasters had not improved during that time. It also raised questions about the concept of distance learning and the way that knowledgable forecasters transfer information to others at their office. The second avenue for interaction was discussions in class. These came about because of two primary kinds of activities. "Homework" analysis exercises were given out the day before each day of the ERL course. Second, many short exercises were included in the lesson plan to illustrate specific points of the lectures. Finally, at the end of each course, the classes were divided into teams of three to five forecasters. The teams were given historic data from specific cases and charged with forecasting where and how much heavy rain was expected, if any. An important component of the exercise was to demonstrate the importance of interacting with colleagues when making a forecast, particularly of a rare, severe event. During the 1980s, the material in the ERL portion of the FFFC remained static. A first plan to update the material in the mid-1980s was discouraged, because the FFFC was to be replaced by a hydrometeorological forecasting course "soon." (As mentioned in the introduction, "soon" turned out to be more than a decade!) Although several people taught a small number of classes, the majority were taught by Maddox and C. Doswell, first of the Weather Research Laboratory and later the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). Although the basic materials stayed the same, each instructor emphasized points of particular interest to them; thus, the nature of each meeting depended upon the individual instructor as well as the students. It was generally a positive aspect of the in-class learning process 3) (1992-1994) By the early 1990s, some materials in the FFFC were becoming outdated and the "replacement" course was not imminent. As a result, ERLinstrUctors C. Doswell and H. Brooks decided to undertake a second major revision of Redesign The Second Great